Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I recently was on twitter going back and forth with some colleagues on the topic of IPv6 (shocking, I know) and I said the following:

"IPv6 is like global warming, sea level rise is easy to ignore (or deny) but it will impacts a crazy number of people"

This resonates with me. The fact that regardless of how you feel about global warming (man made, natural fluctuation, curse from a $deity) the effects are what matters. There is sea level rise (it is measurable, we are measuring it, it is going up) and given the fact that a very high percentage of the world populations live close or on the edges of the oceans they are going to be impacted.

There are practical ways to deal with this. Most agree the sea level change isn't going to jump up 3+ feet overnight (outside of storm surges, etc.) so it is possible to plan and take corrective action. There are cities and governments in the world where this is happening today. They are being proactive and realize it will take a long time to get everyone to adjust to this new change (building codes, zoning, etc.) There are also those that are not taking these actions. Finally there are those unfortunate few who can't address it even if they wanted to, like some small remote islands.

We won't know the final outcome and impact until years later. Who did the right strategic move and planned, implemented and were ready for the eventual sea level rise? It is analogous to those who plan, implement and deploy IPv6. In both situations you can wait. But eventually you must deal with the issue. Will you be ready when the sea level rise happens? Will you able to execute on IPv6 when your company needs you to?

So perhaps the global warming community can say:
"Global warming is like IPv6, IPv4 depletion is easy to ignore (or deny) but it will impact a crazy number of people"